THOR: Sci-Fi Romance (Far Hope Series Book 1)

by E. A. James

  “There are others around,” she said. “They will help.”

  Bane nodded and believed her. He heard a pop and he knew Mage was changing. He looked at Hannah. She was wide-eyed and scared but there was determination coming from her, too.

  Bane turned his attention to the army and brought his own dragon to the party. This was ending here and now.

  It happened very fast. They all opened fire at the same time. A moment later more dragons appeared and the war was back where it had been at the facility. It was impossible to think that the humans were willing to do the same again after they had lost so many lives. Bane fought, spraying fire, trying to eliminate the weapons and not the people. Sometimes it failed.

  At one point a sharp pain penetrated his chest. Bane checked his body but there was no sign of blood. He turned and looked toward the ship. He felt like he was dying, his body suddenly weak. He saw Hannah lying in a crumpled heap, blood pouring from a wound in her chest the same place he was hurting.

  They’d hurt her. That bastard had hurt his own daughter. Bane turned back to them and saw red.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Hannah opened her eyes. She was surrounded by white. She couldn’t tell where she was or why she was there. A sharp pain in her chest made her wince. The rest of her body felt numb.

  Where the hell was she?

  A face moved into her line of vision.

  “Where am I?” she asked. It was a woman and she wore white. Her skin was pale, her hair virtually colorless, so that she looked like her surroundings. She checked Hannah’s vitals without looking her in the eye once or speaking.

  “I asked you a question,” Hannah said. Breathing made her chest hurt. “Where’s Bane?”

  The mention of his name caused a flicker of recognition on the nurse’s face but she carried on ignoring Hannah.

  Hannah tried to push herself up. The nurse didn’t try to stop her, but the pain did her work for her. Hannah fell back, whimpering. She remembered the shooting, the dragons, and her dad’s empty eyes. God, the way he’d stared at her it was like he’d disowned her as his daughter. It had been apparent what she’d done, whose side she’d chosen.

  And he hated her for it now. If he came in here she was going to get it and bad.

  “Please talk to me?” she asked in a polite voice. It didn’t help any more than demanding or pleading had.

  She closed her eyes and tried to figure out if there was pain anywhere else. Other than her chest, though, she seemed okay. Her chest and her heart. Where was Bane? Where was her father?

  The doors to the white room slid open and Bane walked in. His black hair and diamond eyes were in stark contrast to all the white.

  “Thank you, Fern,” he said. The nurse nodded and moved away.

  “You’re alive.” Bane looked like he’d been scared she wouldn’t be.

  “I am,” Hannah said. “Hurting, but alive. What happened with the war?”

  Bane shook his head. She wasn’t sure what that meant.

  “We got away. We’re in the ship now, on our way to the next planet that might be habitable.”

  Hannah looked around. “We’re in outer space.”

  Bane smiled and nodded. “You’re in our medical facility. You were caught in the cross fire. I felt the bullet when it penetrated your chest.”

  Hannah gasped.

  They were silent for a while, Hannah taking it all in.

  “Do you still want this?” Bane asked.

  “Leaving with you?”

  He nodded. Hannah didn’t have to think about it.

  “I do. I saw my father on the front of that truck before they started shooting, and the truth is I didn’t recognize him. That man can’t be the person I aspire to be.”

  Bane leaned forward and kissed her lightly before pushing his hands into her hair.

  “It’s going to be uncertain from here on out. We don’t know what we’ll find. We’re still searching for a place to call home.”

  Hannah nodded, her hand sliding up Bane’s until she reached his chest.

  “It will be an adventure.”

  ***THE END***

  THE PRIMAL BILLIONAIRE

  CHAPTER ONE

  Margaret could sense someone standing over her. She didn’t have to open her eyes to know who it was—Liz. She kept her eyes squeezed shut, hoping that her roommate would eventually go away. It didn’t work. Liz began to noisily move around the room, clanging glasses together, and shuffling through papers. She must have lost patience with Margaret, because the next thing she knew, Liz was tossing bits of old popcorn in her direction.

  “I’m up,” Margaret said, covering her face with her hands to prevent any more kernels from hitting her.

  “About time,” Liz said annoyed. She gathered up a handful of dishes and walked out of the room.

  As Margaret sat up, she wiped the sleep from her eyes, and let her legs hang over the edge of the small, beat-up couch. She couldn’t believe that this was where she had ended up. When she moved to New York six months ago she had big dreams and high hopes. She was going to be a famous actress; she was going to make a name for herself.

  The city proved to be a lot more unfriendly than she had expected. Coming from a small town in upstate New York, Maggie was unfamiliar with the heartless, cold, no-nonsense world that was the Big Apple. In the last months, she hadn’t gotten one single acting job—not even a commercial spot or uncredited appearance on a TV show. She had been to more auditions than she could count, and nothing. She had already blown through her savings, which was what led her to this—sleeping on the old couch in the small, cramped family room of a dumpy two bedroom apartment in Queens. Initially she had her own room. It was a small room but it had a door and privacy, and provided her with some sort of dignity. But when she could no longer afford to pay the rent, her roommate found someone else who could.

  It was true that Liz’s willingness to let Maggie crash on the couch until she could get on her feet could be perceived as kind. But that’s not what it felt like. Margaret was more convinced that the only reason Liz hadn’t kicked her out completely was because she enjoyed having her around—it made her feel better about herself. She was constantly putting her down, reminding her on an almost daily basis that she was on the brink of complete failure.

  Liz had been living in the city for several years, and she was not afraid to tell Margaret that she didn’t think she “had what it took” to survive. “You’re too weak,” she said one day while they were watching TV. “This city is going to chew you up and spit you out. You’re better just going back to wherever it is you came from. Save yourself the embarrassment and pain.”

  Her roommate’s observations did little to help Maggie’s self-confidence, which was always low. Her family and friends from home had always said that she would need to be more certain of herself if she was going to make it in the overly competitive world of acting. Until recently it had never been an issue. Taking on roles in school plays and small, local productions was never a problem for her. She enjoyed the experience of being someone else—it was an escape from who she was.

  But now she could see that being able to portray someone self-assured and confident wasn’t enough. When going to auditions and casting calls, she needed to show the directors that she was someone who was comfortable in her own skin—someone who had spunk and tenacity.

  And that was not Margaret. She couldn’t be confident with who she was when she found herself so boring and plain. While she didn’t think she was unattractive, she didn’t think she was attractive either. She was just average. Her hair was medium length and a very dull color of brown. Her eyes matched her hair—dull brown. She was curvy, something that she never seemed to care about or notice before. But now, going to compete with other girls, all skinny and slender, she suddenly felt out of place.

  Maggie got to her feet to begin folding up the sheet she used the night before, when she saw the newspaper on the coffee table. This was Liz’s newest way of dro
pping hints that she wanted her out. Every morning for the last week she had left the paper out and opened to the classifieds.

  After putting the sheet away, Margaret returned to the couch and began scanning the columns for potential jobs. Most required some level of experience, all in areas that she had none. There was nothing—literally nothing—that fit into Margaret’s limited frame of abilities.

  Moving past the jobs section, she decided to look at other sections of the classifieds. “There has to be something I can do,” she said under her breath as she continued to scan the black print. When she came across the “Situations Wanted” section she paused momentarily. The only things she saw were for escorts. “Right,” she scoffed, “’escorts’.” She knew what that meant—prostitutes. Her mother had worried that her moving to the big city would end in her selling her body for money. “I’ll move home before I do that,” she said to herself determinedly.

  As she continued reading one ad caught her eye: “CARETAKER. No experience necessary. Must live in.” She sat back and stared at the wall in front of her. No experience necessary; must live in. It seemed perfect. If anything it was a way to get out of her current living situation.

  “This might just work,” she said to herself, looking back down at the paper in her hand.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Are you going to call?” Liz questioned her eagerly when she told her about the ad she had seen.

  “I don’t know,” she said hesitantly. “They want a caretaker.”

  “So?” Liz asked, grabbing the paper off the coffee table and looking down at the listing Maggie had circled.

  “Caretaker for who? Or what?”

  “Kids, probably,” Liz shrugged.

  “I haven’t taken care of kids since high school!” Maggie exclaimed. “Not since the kids I babysat got too old for needing someone to look after them.”

  “It says ‘no experience necessary’,” Liz pointed out. “So it can’t be that hard. I’m sure even you could do it.”

  Of course she had to say it that way. Of course she had to find some way to put her down while trying to encourage her at the same time. “Thanks,” Maggie said rolling her eyes as she reached for the phone.

  Her hands shaking, she dialed the number. She didn’t push call, though. She just sat staring at the screen. “What are you waiting for?” Liz asked, grabbing the phone from her hand and pushing the green “call” button. Maggie heard it begin to ring when Liz handed it back to her. “Good luck!” she smiled at her innocently.

  Flustered, she quickly lifted the phone to her ear just as a gruff man’s voice came over the line. “Hello?” the voice asked.

  “Yes,” she started, her voice shaking. “Hello. I’m calling about the… Well, I saw an ad in the paper for a…”

  “Caretaker,” the man replied. He sounded annoyed.

  “Yes,” she said quickly. “I was hoping to set up an interview.”

  “What time are you free?” the voice demanded more than asked.

  “When? Today?” she was taken aback.

  “Yes.” The voice still had the annoyed tone to it.

  She looked quickly at the clock on the cable box—9:36. “I can be available any time after 11:00,” she said. She immediately regretted that, though. Maybe she should have made it seem like she had an actual life—like she had other responsibilities?

  “That will be fine,” the voice replied. Quickly, he gave her the address and hung up without waiting for her to verify that she had the right place, or even ask for the name of who she would be meeting with.

  “Get an interview?” Liz asked her as she lowered the phone.

  “Yea,” she answered, quickly looking around the room for a piece of paper and a pen. “I need to write down the address,” she said getting to her feet.

  “When is it for?” Liz asked, handing her a slip of paper from the table.

  Maggie grabbed a pen and scribbled down what she hoped to be the correct address. “Today,” she said not looking over at her roommate. “At 11:00—I think.”

  When she walked up to the large, glass-covered building, she was sure that she had written down the wrong address. This was a very expensive area, and the apartment complex in front of her was easily the nicest on the entire street. It was the nicest she had ever seen!

  She peered down at the little slip of paper again, checking the number. Letting out a nervous sigh, she forced herself forward. When she reached the glass door, she stared at the rows of illuminated buttons. It appeared that there were 15 floors, with 10 apartments on each—except for the last. She looked down at her paper again. “Apartment 1500,” she said looking back up at the glowing numbers.

  Her hand shaking, she pressed the button quickly, not even sure she had held it down long enough for it to actually ring. It must have, though, because just a few second later the front door let out a loud buzz, letting her know it was opened. As she pulled the door open slowly she felt her heart begin to beat harder in her chest.

  When she got in the elevator, she tried to push the button for the 15th floor, but nothing happened. Leaning in closer she noticed that there was a keyhole next to the number. She tried to push the button again, but nothing happened. Just as she was about to give up and leave, the doors slid closed in front of her, and the small metal box began to move upwards.

  When the doors slid opened again, her jaw dropped. The elevator opened up directly into the middle of a penthouse—a very elegant and sleek looking penthouse. The wall directly in front of her was made entirely of windows, providing an awe-inspiring view of the city. All of the furniture was high-end leather. She guessed from the smell that it was real leather as well. The walls were all a crisp white color, and the curtains black, giving a very sharp look to the room. She walked into the room slowly. There was no one around. She heard the doors of the elevator close behind her. She spun around quickly, trying to stop them. She was sure she had messed up somewhere along the way. This couldn’t be the place!

  “Hello,” a voice said from behind her. When she turned she saw an older man, probably in his late 50s or early 60s, wearing a black suit and white shirt standing in the far left corner of the room.

  “I’m sorry,” she stuttered. “I think I made a mistake.”

  “You’re here for the interview?” the man asked slowly.

  “Yes,” she squeaked.

  “This way,” he said motioning for her to follow him as he disappeared around the corner.

  She quickened her step to catch up with him. He led her down a long hallway with gray and white marble tile floors, and imposing black doors running along the walls. He stopped at the third door on the left, turning to face her before pushing it open. “Mr. McGuire will see you in here,” he said as walked in. She followed him slowly. “He will be in momentarily.”

  He waited for her to take a seat on the couch before turning to leave. The room he had taken her to was a study of some sort. Three of the walls were lined with bookcases, all filled. There was an over-sized oak desk in front of the fourth wall which was made up of windows, like the one in the room the elevator left her in. Despite the light pouring in, the room still had a dark feel to it.

  When the door opened to her left, she stood to her feet quickly, trying to straighten out her shirt and make herself look presentable. The man who walked in the room was tall, with very broad shoulders and a head full of luscious black hair. His eyes were deep blue, and his jaw line rigid. He had a stern look about him, but despite that he was very handsome.

  Margaret suddenly became very self-conscious. Her short brown hair hung messily around her face, and she had smeared her make-up on quickly, afraid she would be late for the interview. She was under-dressed, apparently, in her jeans and purple ruffled top.

  “Sit,” the man ordered her firmly. She did as she was told, looking down to the ground to keep from staring too intently at him. “My name is Joshua McGuire. And you are?”

  “Maggie… I mean, Margaret—Margaret
Johnson,” she replied quickly.

  “Which is it? Maggie or Margaret?”

  “My friends call me Maggie…” she said meekly.

  “Are we friends?” he shot back at her. She could feel her face begin to turn red, and her hands shook in her lap.

  “No, sir. I wouldn’t say that we were.”

  “So Margaret it is,” he said taking a seat at the desk. “Come sit here,” he said motioning to the chair across from him. As she stood to move she could feel his eyes burning into her. “Where are you from, Margaret?”

  “Upstate,” she answered quietly as she took her seat.